World's oldest bottle of beer

Oh, my....I've been quite the slacker over the holidays! I should be ashamed. But fear not, Faithful Reader. The BeerLady is still alive and well, and ready to get back to work.

I read a bit of trivia recently that seems to be stuck in my mind. A single bottle of beer sold on ebay for $503,000. Yes, that's over half a million dollars. It's the world's oldest known sealed bottle of beer, a bottle of Allsopp's Arctic Ale brewed in 1852 for an Arctic expedition.

1852? Good grief! I mean, if that bottle of whatever's-your-favorite-beer (or WYFB) that got left in the cooler for 6 months is skunky, can you only imagine what must be in this bottle by now? Aging beer is one thing, but this is a bit ridiculous.

Of course, I'm going on the assumption that no one that pays $503K for the world's oldest sealed bottle of beer is going to be crazy enough to open it up for a taste. Kind of defeats the purpose of buying the oldest sealed bottle, doesn't it? But I can't help thinking how much really good beer I could buy with that same $503K....